Articles and info on holidays and cottages in the UK and Ireland

New Android and Blackberry application aimed at finding a recycling point near your holiday cottage

T-Mobile recycle App, shown on G2

T-mobile have just released a new app for smartphones, including the Android and Blackberry. Give it your postcode and, optionally, the type of thing you need to recycle, and it will show a map of your nearest recycle points.

I tested the app on my T-mobile G1, and it was very impressive indeed. It seems to pinpoint not only larger recycling centres, but also just those bottle banks you get on the side of the road and in supermarkets. And if you input the postcode of your holiday cottage, it will give you info on the local council’s kerbside recycling policy too.

Allison Murray, Head of Corporate Responsibility at T-Mobile, says:

“Although national recycling rates are on the rise, thousands of potentially recyclable materials still get thrown away every day purely because people don’t know where the nearest recycling point is. We don’t often hear about the link between throwing waste in landfill and the contribution it makes to global warming, when in fact methane gas produced from landfill sites is a powerful greenhouse gas. Methane accounted for about eight percent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2007. We’ve harnessed the latest mobile technology in partnership with Valpak to make it easier for people find out what they can recycle and where, saving them time and money – on top of doing their bit for the environment.”

It’s a free application, although your mobile phone provider may charge you for Internet data usage associated with the app. The application can be downloaded from www.thespark.t-mobile.co.uk or by texting RECYCLE to 80988. I was also able to download the app direct to my phone on the Android Market, which seemed to work flawlessly. It’s called the “Recycle Guide”.

Looks ideal for recycling all those wine bottles after a weekend break in a cottage!